Almost Perfect
by Missus Anonymous J
Summary: James's POV of his and Lily's relationship from sixth year until half-way through seventh.


It was halfway through sixth year when we finally called a truce. I stopped pestering her for a date, and she stopped hexing me whenever she saw me. After a few agonizing weeks, we eventually formed a tentative friendship.

_Maybe her eyes are just a little bit red  
Almost all the time_

Three weeks after the forming of our new relationship, the Ministry sent her a letter. 'Ms. Evans. It is to our great displeasure to announce the deaths of Mr and Mrs Evans, on the fifth of March, nineteen-sixty seven. Sincerely, the Minister Of Magic'. The bastards didn't even offer their condolences for her loss.

She would spend the better portion of the days in tears, either sobbing in her dormitory, or sitting silently with Sirius, Remus, Peter and myself, not eating, not speaking… barely even breathing. She'd walk to classes; her eyes red and heavily bagged. We all knew she wasn't sleeping. She was slowly killing herself. There were the rare moments that I was able to get a smile to crack through, but the smiles became less and less frequent, and eventually she began to ignore me all together.

_Maybe her hair, it smells like cigarettes  
When I climb into bed with her at night_

At some point, I'm assuming at the most, one month after the letter arrived, she took up smoking. She would disappear for hours on end, and then return, a glazed look over her eyes, smelling like burning tar.

The first time I genuinely noticed that she smelt like cigarette smoke, was when she fell asleep on the couch in the Gryffindor common room. She hadn't been sleeping very well lately, so rather then waking her, Sirius, Remus and I levitated her carefully up the stairs into the boys' dormitory and set her gently on my bed. I tucked her in and carefully climbed in next to her, I could smell the smoke radiating from her hair.

_She don't wanna try But this just feels so right_

Before the end of the year, our friendship grew even more, and eventually we were acting like a new couple. We'd never be seen without the other, and occasionally we'd hold hands, or she'd sit with me on the couch, slowly dozing off, and on more then one occasion she would fall asleep in my arms in the boys dormitory. I knew she didn't want anything more then friendship with me but it felt so… perfect.

_She's almost perfect  
She is so close to being everything  
She's almost perfect_

We talked a lot on the train ride to Kings Cross at the end of the year. I was told more horror stories of her past, and I got to see the emotional scars these experiences had left her with. The death of her best friend when she was five, and he was six. They'd been climbing trees together, and she'd slipped. He reached down to help her up, but her weight was too much. They had both gone plummeting to the ground. She'd escaped without a scar, while he'd broken his neck and died instantly.

She told me about the car crash that had killed her pregnant aunt. The car crash that she had unintentionally caused when she accidentally performed wandless magic, causing her aunt, who'd been driving, to panic and look frantically over at her, trying to find out what had happened. She described in such vivid detail and emotion what had happened the thirty seconds before they had hit the semi-truck head on that I could feel my eyes burning. She's escaped that accident without even a scratch as well.

There wasn't a scar on her body, and there never had been. The scars were deeper then the skin. Physically, she was perfect. Emotionally, she was destroyed.

_But she's not, she's not mine_

I suppose the first time it occurred to me that she truly wasn't mine, was when I met her at Diagon Alley, and she'd dragged her muggle boyfriend along.

"Oh, it's okay," she'd said, "His sister is a witch. Graduated from Hogwarts two years ago. His brother graduated last year. This is Anthony Shacklebolt."

Seeing how the two acted around each other, even though I was there, was painful for me. I felt like the third wheel… hell, I was the third wheel.

That's when I realized it. She's not mine. She never was.

_Maybe she knows she drives me crazy  
Just bats her eyes like she's my baby_

We met up again going to Hogwarts on the train. She and Anthony had broken up, and she was single again… and slowly putting her parents deaths behind her.

I thought I'd changed that summer, but watching her sit in the Head compartment, staring out the window, a crease between her eyebrows as she thought, and the redness that was her lower lip from chewing on it so much in the five minutes prior to her staring/thinking moment. It was driving me insane! Suddenly, she turned her gorgeous eyes towards me and blinked twice before smiling faintly and asking, "so, how was your summer, Jamie?"

And it was then, the sudden twitch of the eye, the tiny smile, and the old nickname I had grown accustomed to, that I was hooked. Again.

_Maybe she's quick to let her tongue fly at me  
She's not the most proper lady_

The arguments during the meetings with the Prefects were impressive. Always full of wit, sharp-tongue and foul language, mostly on her part. I was more than happy to just sit back, grinning as I watched her pink lips yell at young, ignorant, self-absorbed Slytherin's who felt the constant need to hassle the other Prefects.

By the fourth meeting, she had gained five individual detentions for bad-mouthing the Prefects and for openly using obscene hand gestures to indicate her point.

Oh, and the classic, "Just take the bloody idea and shove it up your ass!"

McGonagall's face upon hearing her top student say this was priceless. Of course, it earned her another two weeks worth of detentions.

God, how I love this woman.

_I'm the one to blame I know I caused this crash  
So now I wander in this mess  
In this lake of sour mashed_

I watched her from a distance that January, in the fair year of 1978. I watched as she cried on Sirius's shoulder about the things I'd said to her, the things I'd done.

My parents had just died! How was I supposed to know that her sister had disowned her!…

I had been making excuses non-stop for the past two months, since she'd finally agreed to go out with me.

I suddenly began realizing that she wasn't perfect. She was just as horribly destroyed as the rest of us, both physically and psychologically.

Honestly? It pained me to know that I had been the one that had driven her to sob on my best friends shoulder, to know that I was the one causing her pain, that I had knowingly committed the most horrible crime…

…depurifying the person I held so dear.

_Through my head the notion that  
Maybe she's not quite honest with me_

In February of that year, she started spending an increasing amount of time with Sirius, and they kept secrets from me. Secrets that, to this day, I'm unaware exist.

We'd be sitting in the Great Hall, munching away, and the two would have a conversation with their eyes. No words spoken what so ever. Minutes later they would both get up and walk out of the Hall, talking in low voices, without informing the rest of us of where they were going.

I'd questioned her about it a lot. And it would always be the same answer. "You have nothing to worry about, James. Sirius is… helping me."

But I did worry. I worried all the time. Especially when she started blowing me off to spend more time with Sirius

_Almost all the time_

Too often would she say "Oh, sorry, James. Can't make it tonight. Sirius and I are going to get together to finish our homework."

My best friend doesn't do his homework. Ever.

_Maybe I know there's someone else in her life  
When I climb into bed with her at night_

It was March when my worst fears were confirmed. I walked into the Gryffindor common room, and saw them, curled up together on the sofa, sound asleep. Sirius low on the couch, his feet on the table in front of him, and her lying down, her head on his lap, facing the fire, his arm draped loosely about her shoulders. The way mine used to drape around her shoulders while she slept.

_She's almost perfect  
She's so close to being everything  
She's almost perfect_

It wasn't until a week later, when I confronted them, that I found out the truth. Sirius had been on the receiving end of some bad news, and she was simply trying to comfort him… but Sirius didn't want anyone to know what had happened.

Apparently they would claim to get together, Sirius would go and deal with it on his own, and she would sit in the library for hours, pouring over textbooks, trying to figure out a way to fix whatever had happened.

They showed me proof. She had been writing down the titles of the books that she went through, and the pages that useful information had been on. She had twenty-seven feet of parchment in total. In six weeks, that was pretty impressive, especially since they only got together two or three times.

_But she's not.  
She's not._

Three weeks later, at the beginning of April, she broke up with me. Apparently I was smothering her, I was getting too clingy for her to do well in school, and to succeed as an Auror. Under normal circumstances, I would've thrown a tantrum, said it was stupid, and that I could just relax.

I didn't. It was hard for me to be near her with all the killings that were going on…

_She's almost perfect  
She's so close to being everything  
She's almost perfect_

…I think it was more along the lines of, I didn't want to risk losing her, which is what I was doing if I kept dating her… if I fell in love with her.

_But she's not.  
She's not Mine._

Along came my eighteenth birthday. Sirius, Remus and Peter decorated the common room, and they threw a party. She was there, as usual. Flirting with some seventh year Ravenclaw that had been invited.

I'd lost her all over again.

_Mine._

As the party was ending, and the numbers were dwindling off, she approached me. A smile on her face, and her hands behind her back.

"James!" she smiled cheerily at me, then withdrew her hands from behind her. She handed me a beautifully wrapped gift and stood there as I opened it.

I opened it to find a tiny box, about the size of a ring box.

I glanced up at her, and almost laughed aloud at the gleeful-yet nervous-expression on her face. I then turned my attention back to the box in my hand. I slowly opened the top and was pleased to see a Golden Snitch lying against the black velvet that lined the wooden box. I lifted it from the box and held it up, grinning widely at her.

She beamed before saying, "there's an inscription, too, James."

I turned it over, to read the inscription.

'To Jamie. I love you, and always will. All my love, L.E.'

I gazed back up at her, my mouth in a shocked kind of "o" shape.

She nervously bit her lip before saying, "it's true. I love you, James Potter."

_Yeah._

I smiled and wrapped my arms tightly around her waist, pulling her close to me and breathing her scent in, placing a quick kiss on her temple before replying…

"I love you, too, Lily Evans."

_Yeah._

_Lyrics belong to Ingram Hill._


End file.
